CHANGE TACK TO CURB HEROIN DEATH RATE

[1]
Commenting on drug-related deaths Shane Darke (Herald, December 8) claims
that intensive policing saves lives. While policing may have an indirect
effect by limiting supply and reducing demand, it may have more direct,
negative effects on the deaths about which he expresses concern.

Research has shown that fear about police involvement is an important
factor in people delaying (or not making) the 000 call when someone overdoses.

A person who overdoses may be charged with possession or
self-administration. We are aware of a recent case in which a young person
was taken from a hospital bed and charged with self-administration.

It is vital that companions of an overdose victim should call an ambulance.
But they are deterred from doing so when their actions attract police
attention for themselves or their friends. In the recent case, ambulance
officers questioned those present about the source of the drugs.

In another, more serious, case, a young man died after injecting heroin
with a clean needle and syringe provided by a companion. The latter was
convicted of manslaughter on the grounds that he had aided and abetted
self-administration by providing the injecting equipment.

Apart from the damage such decisions do to efforts to reduce the
transmission of HIV and hepatitis C by encouraging the distribution and use
of sterile equipment, this conviction will discourage drug users from
seeking help in overdose situations. Police and ambulance officers should
treat overdoses as medical, not criminal, situations. Abolishing the
offence of self-administration would assist them to do so.

- - Assoc Prof David Dixon, Faculty of Law, University of NSW, Dr Lisa Maher,
School of Medical Education, Kensington.

[2]
Shock, horror! Heroin deaths are up 23 per cent in just a year (Herald,
December 8).

But those are the figures for 1998 that took 11 months to be released
officially.

We've already been told that the unreleased figures for 1999 show another
increase at least as big, and possibly as high as 35-40 per cent.

Are we going to wait for those figures to be released - for 1,000 more
young people to die - before we decide that something is seriously wrong?

- - Gordon Drennan, Ultimo.

[3]
"Unintended consequences" and "collateral damage"; just a couple of phrases
that spring to mind on seeing that the NSW death rate from heroin overdose
is now 120 per million per year of those aged 15-44 (Herald, December 8).

Before the prohibition of opiates the death rate from opiate overdose
oscillated between 2 and 5 per million.

One of the main results of prohibition has been the replacement of the
older, safer forms of drugs with more potent, more easily smuggled, but far
more dangerous variants.

Now if I had legislated to eliminate a perceived social evil, and the
problem subsequently worsened some 30-fold, I think I would be considering
alternatives. Is anyone in Macquarie Street listening? Is anyone thinking?

- - Andrew Moran, Narara.

[4]
A lot of money, time and effort has gone into making many Australian
sporting teams number one in the world this year.

If only there could be a lot more money, time and effort put into making
Australia lose one of its world number one rankings - the rate of
heroin-related deaths.

- - David Tuch, Maroubra.